Saturday, 30 August 2014

Preliminaries

If you are following my blog you may wonder where all my grand building plans have gone. Well, firstly, I have been away on holiday for two weeks. Secondly, since I came back I have been priming the parts, which takes a lot of time and isn't particularly spectacular. It is a boring, but peaceful work, and I have had luck with weather and could be outside. I have now primed almost all large parts, run out of paint and therefore primed some small parts. I am not going to B&Q on a weekend so it will have to wait. There are other things I can do. On the house, I mean. I have plenty of non-dollhouse-related things to do.

The long priming sessions have been tremendously useful because they gave me time to get thoroughly acquainted with the parts. I still haven't received any instructions, but I have identified most of the parts and have a vague idea where they go. There are some complicated bits such as staircases and balconies, but it will be some time before I get there.

At the moment, I have assembled a shell.

The side walls are still drying, but I now can see the dimensions of the house, and where the doors and windows are, and I can start planning the rooms. I can even try putting in some furniture.

It turns out that the improvement the manufacturer has performed is quite substantial and, among other things, has removed some nice features. Never mind. I just need to plan slightly differently. Where there was one large room there are now two small, and where there were six small attic rooms there are now three. There are some interesting back rooms that I haven't yet figured out how to use.

I believe it will take me some time to play and plan. There are two radically different ideas about decorating first or assembling first. I believe I will need to plan every step and then decide the order in which I will take them. I am sure I will make mistakes. Hopefully not fatal.

I can paint all ceilings now because I know which side is the ceiling and which is the floor. I will have ceiling roses in some rooms, and I know how to make them. I have been saving cheese lids for a while. Some yoghurt lids are fine too.

I will most probably make floors on separate sheets to insert into rooms. I may be able to use some of the floors from the Victorian house or the art gallery.

In any case, there will be some interesting development soon. Do come back!